Image processing apparatus, image processing method, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and image pickup apparatus for processing a picked-up image

a technology of image processing and image pickup, which is applied in the direction of color television details, color signal processing circuits, television systems, etc., can solve the problems of difficult to distinguish whether or not the detection subject pixel is a defect pixel, and the manufacturing of image pickup elements is difficul

Active Publication Date: 2017-02-14
CANON KK
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  • Summary
  • Abstract
  • Description
  • Claims
  • Application Information

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

Enables proper defect pixel detection and correction in image pickup elements with microlens arrays, improving image quality by accurately identifying and correcting defective pixels even after refocus processing, ensuring accurate image reconstruction and display.

Problems solved by technology

However, it is practically very difficult to manufacture an image pickup element in which all pixels properly perform a conversion into an electric signal corresponding to an incident light amount.
However, in the photographing by the image pickup apparatus having the MLA as mentioned above, in order to realize the real-time detection of the defect pixel, there is the following problem.
However, among the image pickup apparatuses having the MLA mentioned above, the image pickup apparatus based on a prerequisite that the reconstruction for executing the predetermined image processing such as a refocus processing or the like is performed has the following problem.
That is, an arrangement of the pixel signals at the time of reading out from the image pickup element or at the time of storing the image data is not always an arrangement corresponding to a positional relationship of the object images, and thus the image data is of data which may not be suitable for direct display to observe.
Therefore, if such an arrangement is used as it is, it is difficult to discriminate whether or not the detection subject pixel is a defect, based on the peripheral pixel signal of the defect pixel as shown in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2005-286825.
Consequently, it is further difficult to detect which pixel of the image pickup element is a defect pixel, based on the pixel signal of the reconstruction image.

Method used

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  • Image processing apparatus, image processing method, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and image pickup apparatus for processing a picked-up image
  • Image processing apparatus, image processing method, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and image pickup apparatus for processing a picked-up image
  • Image processing apparatus, image processing method, non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and image pickup apparatus for processing a picked-up image

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first embodiment

[0031

[0032]FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an image pickup apparatus according to the first embodiment of the invention.

[0033]In FIG. 1, an optical system 101 for photographing, such as lenses or the like, a mechanical shutter 102, and an image pickup element 103 for converting incident light into an electric signal are provided. The image pickup element 103 has: a photoelectric conversion unit 104 for converting the incident light into the electric signal; and a signal amplification unit 105 for amplifying the electric signal.

[0034]An analog signal processing unit 106 obtains an image signal which is output from the image pickup element 103 and executes an analog signal processing thereon. The analog signal processing unit 106 has: a signal amplifier 107 for amplifying the analog signal; a clamp unit 108 for performing a horizontal OB clamp; and an A / D converter 109 for converting the analog signal into the digital signal.

[0035]A timing signal generation unit 110 generates signals for...

second embodiment

[0103

[0104]The present embodiment has such a construction that the operational construction such that even after the refocus image is reconstructed, the detection and correction of the defect pixel are performed by the digital signal processing unit 112 is added to the operation of the image pickup apparatus of the first embodiment. Therefore, since the construction of the image pickup apparatus itself in the present embodiment is similar to that of FIG. 1, its description is omitted here.

[0105]FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating a flowchart for the photographing operation according to the second embodiment. In the flowchart, substantially the same processing steps as those in FIG. 8 are designated by the same step numbers. FIG. 11 differs from FIG. 8 with respect to only a point that a defect correction (step S1101) is added after the image processing of step S810 of reconstructing the refocus image. Therefore, in the present embodiment, only the defect correction in step S1101 will ...

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Abstract

An image processing apparatus for processing a picked-up image which is output from an image pickup element in which a microlens array for obtaining the picked-up image including ray directional information of an object image formed by a photographing optical system has been arranged has: a refocus processing unit for executing a refocus processing of the obtained picked-up image on the basis of the ray directional information and generating a reconstruction image; and a defect pixel detection unit for detecting a defect pixel from the obtained picked-up image. When the picked-up image is obtained, the detection of the defect pixel of the obtained picked-up image is performed. When a refocus processing is instructed, the refocus processing is executed to the picked-up image in which the detection of the defect pixel is performed.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]Field of the Invention[0002]The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and, more particularly, to an image processing apparatus for processing a picked-up image obtained by an image pickup element having a microlens array at a front side thereof.[0003]Description of the Related Art[0004]In the related art, there exist many image pickup apparatuses such as an electronic camera and the like for recording and reproducing a still image or a moving image picked up by an image pickup element such as CCD, CMOS, or the like to / from a recording medium serving as a memory card having a memory element.[0005]An example of techniques regarding those image pickup apparatuses has been proposed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. S61-261974. Such an image pickup apparatus is constructed in such a manner that a microlens array (hereinbelow, abbreviated to an MLA) in which microlenses are arranged at a rate of one to a predetermined number...

Claims

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Application Information

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Patent Type & AuthorityPatents(United States)
IPC IPC(8): H04N9/64H04N5/225H04N5/232
CPCH04N5/23212H04N23/672H04N23/80H04N25/683H04N23/67H04N23/63
InventorSUZUKI, SATOSHIKOBAYASHI, HIROKAZU
OwnerCANON KK